Work-life interface and intention to stay in the midwifery profession among pre- and post-clinical placement students in Canada (original) (raw)
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Women and Birth, 2021
Objectives: To explore and describe the preferred model of practice and first job decisions of final stage midwifery students from three Western Australian Universities. Design: Qualitative descriptive. Setting: Three Western Australian (WA) universities offering courses leading to registration as a midwife. Participants: Twenty-seven midwifery students from undergraduate and postgraduate (preregistration) courses. Methods: Data were collected from recorded interviews and focus groups. Thematic analysis of interview transcripts was used to identify commonalities. Data saturation guided when recruitment ceased and final sample size was achieved. Findings: Participants' preferred model of maternity care was influenced by learning about and witnessing both autonomous midwifery practice and collaborative care during their studies. The greatest influence was clinical experience, with most preferring a Continuity of Midwifery model (CoM) but first consolidating their practice in a public hospital. Most students reported that they would not choose a private hospital as their first option. Work/life balance was also considered, with some accepting that family commitments and a need to work close to home may prevent them from choosing a CoM model. Conclusion and Implications: Although many Australian midwifery students start their midwifery course with preconceived ideology of their eventual workplace, the influences of their educators, clinical placement environment, preceptors and Continuity of Care Experience relationships with
This research explores the experiences of midwives as they transition work settings. It has been found that these experiences are both positive and negative. Midwives relish working with women in a capacity that brings them joy and sustains them within the profession. They achieve this with the valued support of their families, practice partners and colleagues. However, there are numerous stressors on midwives including financial, emotional, physical, family commitments, bullying and work demands, which impact on the ability of the midwife to fulfil these obligations. This dissonance leads to increased levels of stress and fatigue and in order to manage this, the midwives who participated in this research appear to transition work settings. By analysing the lived experiences of nine midwives in Aotearoa/New Zealand who have transitioned work settings between core and LMC (or vice versa) in the previous two years, I have explored the research question ‘What are the experiences of mi...
Journal of Clinical …, 2012
Aim and objectives. The study explored the experiences of newly qualified midwives and described the factors that facilitated or constrained their development during the transition from student to registered midwife. Background. Knowledge of the transition to midwifery practice remains limited. Design and Method. A qualitative descriptive approach was used. Sixteen graduates from one Australian University participated in a tape-recorded interview. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data set. Results. The metaphor of 'The Pond', an environment that consists of layers of life and can be both clear and peaceful or murky and infested, was used to describe new midwives perceptions of the context and culture of hospital-based maternity care. For some, 'The Pond' was a harsh environment that often became toxic. The 'Life-raft' metaphor was used to describe the importance of midwife-to-midwife relationships. The theme of 'Swimming' captured the consequence of positive interactions with colleagues and a supportive environment, whilst 'Sinking' described the consequence of poor relationships with midwives and a difficult working environment. Conclusion. The study highlights the importance of positive midwife-to-midwife relationships on the transition from student to registered midwife. There was also evidence that continuity with women and midwifery colleagues enhanced confidence and restored faith in normal birth. At the same time, it was clear that the midwifery culture of some institutions remains highly contested with midwives struggling to provide woman-centred care and often challenged by the risk-averse nature of maternity care. Relevance to Clinical Practice. Whilst further work is required, the findings provide a deeper understanding of individual midwives' transition period. The importance of forming longitudinal relationships not only with women but with midwifery colleagues is highlighted. Developing continuity models that adequately support graduates and student's needs are likely to assist in addressing practices issues in both the academic and clinical setting.
Influence of clinical placement on undergraduate midwifery students’ career intentions
Midwifery, 2009
Objective: to explore the influence that clinical placements have on career intentions for undergraduate midwifery students. Design: a qualitative approach involving a combination of focus group and individual interviews. Setting: the study was part of a larger study undertaken across a range of health disciplines within one university. Participants: 11 Bachelor of Midwifery students who had either undertaken their first or last clinical placement. Findings: data were managed with QSR NVivo and analysis was influenced by the work of Strauss and Corbin. Two main themes emerged: midwifery as a career choice and future midwifery career. Findings indicated that students entered the course with preconceived ideas of midwifery and where they would practice after graduation. Clinical placements allowed students to experience the reality of midwifery practice, promote identification with the profession, and influenced decision-making about future careers. Finally, it raised limitations placed on diversity of available clinical experience. Key conclusions: clinical placements are essential for midwifery preparation. They challenge students' preconceived ideas about midwifery practice and assist them to develop perspectives on, and directions for, their future careers. The diversity and quality of placement experience plays a significant role in career decision-making and employment choices. Implications for practice: positive placement experiences influence where students will choose to work after graduation. These experiences can directly influence the organisations and clinical areas chosen by students for graduate practice. Crown
Development and validation of Midwifery Vocational Perception Scale
Journal of midwifery and reproductive health, 2021
Background & aim: Vocation perception of midwives is important in terms of their sense and level of professionalism. The purpose of this study was to develop and validate Midwifery Vocational Perception Scale.Methods: This validation study was carried out at five public hospitals located in Istanbul, Turkey from October 1st to December 30th, 2019. In the first stage, 68 items draft form was prepared. After receiving the opinion of seven experts, the face validity of the scale was tested with 20 midwives. In the second stage, the 5-point 52-item Likert scale was administered to 282 midwives. However, since the outliers were deleted before the factor analysis, the analysis was performed for only the data of 232 people. Factor and confirmatory analyses and the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient were used to analyze the scale validity and reliability.Results: According to the exploratory factor analysis, the scale consisted of 16 items and three factors that explained 53.085% of the the scal...
Women and Birth, 2017
BACKGROUND: Continuity of midwifery care contributes to significant positive outcomes for women and babies. There is a perception that providing continuity of care may negatively impact on the wellbeing and professional lives of midwives. AIM: To compare the emotional and professional wellbeing as well as satisfaction with time off and work-life balance of midwives providing continuity of care with midwives not providing continuity. METHOD: Online survey. Measures included; Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (CBI); Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale-21; and Perceptions of Empowerment in Midwifery Scale (PEMS-Revised). The sample (n=862) was divided into two groups; midwives working in continuity (n=214) and those not working in continuity (n=648). Mann Whitney U tests were used to compare the groups. RESULTS: The continuity group had significantly lower scores on each of the burnout subscales (CBI Personal p=.002; CBI Work p<.001; CBI Client p<.001) and Anxiety (p=.007) and Depression (p=.004) sub-scales. Midwives providing continuity reported significantly higher scores on the PEMs Autonomy/Empowerment subscale (p<.001) and the Skills and Resources subscale (p=.002). There was no difference between the groups in terms of satisfaction with time off and work-life balance. CONCLUSION: Our results indicate that providing continuity of midwifery care is also beneficial for midwives. Conversely, midwives working in shift-based models providing fragmented care are at greater risk of psychological distress. Maternity service managers should feel confident that re-orientating care to align with the evidence is likely to improve workforce wellbeing and is a sustainable way forward.
A Cross-sectional Study of Midwives' Perspectives Towards their Professional Educational Needs
Materia Socio Medica, 2014
Background: Midwives are one of the most important health care providers and meeting their professional educational needs can be effective in maternal and child health promotion. Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the midwives' perspectives towards their educational needs. Methods: In this cross-sectional study which was conducted in 2012 in Sari, North of Iran, 223 midwives during a convenience sampling method expressed their educational needs. The instrument of the data collection was a self-administered 64-question researcher-made questionnaire about the participants' educational needs in 10 fields related to midwifery profession. Results: The mean age and employment record of the participants were 33.87±10.49 and 10.09±8.14 years respectively, and the majority (65.02%) of them was employed in the health care centers. Findings showed that the highest score of midwives' educational need was related to need to education about labor and delivery care (75.14±21.13%) which was followed by the need to education about pre marriage counseling (74.04±19.95%) and pre conception counseling (71.33±21.89%). Conclusions: Owing to the emergence of new dimensions of tasks in midwifery practice and due to developing some changes in the educational needs of midwives, it's necessary to implement an updated educational package in order to deliver the recommended standards of care and to increase midwives' participation in continuing education programs.
Midwives transition to practice: Expectations and experiences
Nurse Education in Practice, 2019
The Rural Private Midwifery Education Program (RPMEP), a 2013 strategic response to midwifery workforce issues by the Queensland Government was unique in the Australian context. Midwifery students were embedded within a private midwifery caseload practice or rural publicly funded midwifery group practice (MGP). Continuity of midwifery care was at the core of the students' learning experience. This paper describes a study designed to explore the expectations and experiences of this group of newly qualified midwives as they transitioned to practice. Using a qualitative descriptive methodology, eight newly qualified midwives were interviewed. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data set. Six themes were identified; 'Midwifery-an unexpected career path', 'The 'gifts' of being embedded in caseload as a midwifery student', 'No jobsno real choice', The hospital system-A whole different world', 'Resetting (or Adapting) expectations-Drawing on what I know to be true' and 'What the future holds'. Transitioning to practice after being embedded in caseload midwifery as a student provided challenges for the newly qualified midwives. At the same time it 'gifted' them a strong commitment to woman centred care, continuity and a social model of maternity which they draw on to support their transition.